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10 thoughts on “Bracket Ein – Round 1 – Polls 1-4”

Three of these polls I don’t particularly have much investment in, but Kuusou Rumba v. Cutie Honey is literally tearing me to shreds. The vote has to go to Rumba though, but damnit, who doesn’t love Cutie Honey? Shame it has to go out so early. First Round Losers 8-man enter 1-man leave speed tournament please :p

Magia pretty much destroys Hito Toshite Jiku ga Bureteiru. No contest there.
Magia feels like someone walking on a dark road who refuses to give up. Wakana’s wails is a great touch in giving a feeling of a seductive but eerie background while the violin told of loss and the drums and electric guitars evoked a feeling of motion and confusion while the bells seemed to promise danger. Added to the forceful main vocals, its a very successful mix.

During the initial broadcast, the impact scene in ep 3 of Madoka wasn’t what convinced me that the story wasn’t going to be conventional. It was the ep 3 ED of Magia played at its normal speed. That condensed form pretty much said the entire cast was going to be screwed.

Waltz is not really in the same league as Karma. Waltz would probably work as a semi laid back OP for a Japanese drama but too bland compared to Karma’s rising and falling flow though Karma’s not without its faults especially in being overly draggy and at the 2:00 mark, it sounds out of tune even if it was to generate eeriness.

Kuusou Rumba and Cutie Honey… From the music, it sounds like a face off between the old musical style (80s?) and a new musical style. Neither sound memorable to me though. Going with Cutie Honey for no real reason.

Uso wins vs Orange. Orange is ok but sounds like a generic OP while Uso flows well enough

E1P1: Sadly, Bure faces Magia, so I have to put my vote for Magia. One (if not the) most memorable OST from Madoka.
E1P2: Karma took my vote, mainly because I have preference to any KOKIA’s song.
E1P3: Voted for Rumba. Though during preliminary nomination I put the Rap version, the original is just as good.
E1P4: Voted for Uso. No specific reason.

I’m half surprised so many Orange votes! I guess people do think Toradora ~= FMA:B. I personally don’t think either show was that great, but on the other hand I haven’t finished FMA:B yet (it’s just kind of long and /yawn).

I voted for the two Zetsubou-sensei songs because, why not. Actually Cutie Honey is a great song, but I don’t like this version, so it’s kind of close call I guess. I mean after all how many anisong talks about boobs and butts? I blame this on the strict nomination binning issue that cause so many different versions of the same song to leak through.

Lastly, Waltz and Requiem are kind of a wash. Because one is a pretty generic offering from Honey & Clover (and it’s not even Spitz, com’on I mean, really?), and the other is the most overwrought Kokia offering ever. I’m not even sure it’s her voice and not some twisted opera-metal version of her voice that I’m hearing. I mean how many people actually watched Phantom? Please surprise me and tell me you all love that show or something.

I’m just going to go to a corner and cry about the lack of Akino Arai now. Seriously, this is so weird.

Karma and Magia are no brainers for me.
I’d love it if an oldie like Cutie Honey made it through, but with the exception of Bebop and Evangelion it’s going to be hard for a song from any series more than 10 years old to make it far.

People talk about recency bias, but there’s no way a song as naive as Cutie Honey would have made it past the nominations stage if it weren’t for rose-tinted nostalgia glasses. Even that Hataraku Maou-sama theme people were giving crap earlier has more depth than it, it’s Curry Song tier.